


orare pro me

by redeye



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Divorce, F/M, Infidelity, Jealousy, Post-War, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 11:21:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13340190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redeye/pseuds/redeye
Summary: When she is three weeks old and Sasuke still hasn’t come to see her, Sakura officially files for divorce.( sequel tomea maxima culpa)





	orare pro me

**Author's Note:**

> Standard warnings — I seem incapable of writing things that aren’t smutty (what do you mean, “unnecessary to the plot”?) so there’s that. Also, this is a KakaSaku fic (obviously) but there are mentions of SasuSaku (heavily broken but it is there) and SasuNaru (it’s minor but I thought I should warn for people who don’t like it). I was going to write a continuation where everything was nice but, what can I say, I live for the drama. I wanted to make it longer, but this is just how it turned out... Honestly, I’ll probably keep writing oneshots if people actually want to read them because I’m really liking this verse. Anyway, enjoy!

 

Kakashi can finally breathe.

It’s a testament to his feelings for Sakura that he endured it for so many months. Sneaking in and out of the compound. Never able to fully relax when he was with her, because everywhere he looked was a reminder that he didn't belong there. Tensing at every unexpected sound, because any of them could be the sound of him returning.

What he’s learning is this: in the absence of all that, their relationship is blessedly simple.

Sakura’s new apartment is small. Its windows are large and plentiful and it’s always bathed in light. It’s stories above street level, giving her a view of mostly rooftops and no prying neighbors. There’s a lamp in the living room, a hot plate in the kitchen, and a futon on the bedroom floor. And nothing else. Kakashi loves it.

He loves waking with her in the morning. He loves that when he stirs she pulls herself closer, not wanting to let him go. He probably should, though. Judging by the angle the sun is slanting in the window, he’s probably already late for work.

Too bad Sakura doesn’t have a clock. Oh well.

It’d only been a half-hearted attempt to get out of bed anyway. Sakura’s limbs thrown over him serve as a very effective cage.

“I might have to go in at some point.”

“Nuh-uh.”

It’s hard to argue with the warmth that snuggles on top of him.

“Oh wow, good morning.”

If she wasn’t serious about keeping him in bed before, she certainly is now. She shifts to straddle him properly, settling down with the cloth of her panties directly over where he’s straining half-hard against her.

“What if there’s a national emergency?” he wonders, a little distractedly.

“Fuck ’em,” Sakura answers with a smile as sweet as sunshine. She gives a roll of her hips into his, earning a soft groan as he lets his eyes fall shut.

It doesn’t take long for her to get him hard. It’s cruel, to torture him so. Letting him feel her heat with too many layers of cloth in the way.

He’s trying to keep his head, but she’s making that very difficult. “What if the Hokage Tower’s on fire?”

Sakura lifts herself up only enough to pull him free of his boxers and push her panties aside.

“Let it burn,” she murmurs, easing him inside her and sinking down, and he has no doubt that he would.

“Fuck,” he hisses, tensing as she surrounds him completely in one fluid motion. She’s scorching hot. He breathes raggedly, blunt nails digging into the skin of her thighs as she starts to ride him in earnest. It’s too much all at once. He’s barely even awake and drowning in sensation that has him halfway to orgasm already. A hand on her hip urges her to ease up and she does, abandoning that rhythm in favor of a slow, deliberate grind. With a swirl of his thumb, her jaw drops and she stills for a moment, moaning when he repeats the motion.

Her thighs tremble as she struggles to keep pace with their rapidly mounting pleasure. And when she comes, she finally doesn’t have to be quiet. Kakashi thinks it’s the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. He joins her after only seconds, and she keeps riding him through it, grinding down hard to get every ounce of pleasure out of him before it starts to wane.

A beautiful start to the day.

A half an hour later, Kakashi is watching the clouds drift by outside her window, thinking he should probably wake her. And yet, he doesn’t.

He doesn't have to.

The sound carries through the forest — an anguished cry that only vaguely sounds human. It makes the hair stand up on the back of his neck. Sakura’s wide awake now, and when her eyes meet his he knows she’d had the same thought he did.

Neither of them can get dressed fast enough.

When they find Naruto it’s with the Kyuubi’s chakra bleeding out of him and Sasuke cradled in his arms.

He looks dead. Covered in too much of his own blood. Sakura starts to cry, but it’s Naruto that Kakashi speaks to.

“He might still have a chance. We need to get him to the hospital.”

 

He still has a heartbeat when they arrive. Nurses rush to bring a gurney and whisk him straight to the emergency room.

“Family only,” one tries to tell the three of them.

Sakura rounds on her, furious. “That's my _husband!”_

Without another word, she’s let inside.

It’s no surprise that even her co-workers don’t know who she’s married to, Kakashi thinks, sighing as they make their way back to the waiting room.

Naruto looks wrecked. Heartbroken. Kakashi isn’t feeling too great either.

With all the bitter thoughts he’s had lately, it’s hard not to feel responsible for this somehow. He _has_  been wanting to hurt Sasuke... but not like this. No, he just wanted to rub his face in it. The fact that he’s lost someone precious and only has himself to blame. He wanted to see the horrible revelation sinking in — that Kakashi has thoroughly and irrevocably taken his place.

He’d only wanted to break Sasuke emotionally, not physically.

If he wasn’t damned already for everything he’s done, he certainly would be now.

When Sakura finally re-emerges, it’s without much in the way of good news. He’s not dead yet. That’s all they know. She sits next to Naruto, fighting to hold back her tears. Kakashi can only watch as Naruto tries to comfort her, watch as she collapses under the weight of her guilt.

Because it’s obvious. It’s all over her face, plain as the tears she can’t stop from falling. It’s hitting Kakashi like a blow to the stomach, taking the breath right out of him.

If he hadn’t been given a distraction, he might have suffocated.

He’d left Tenzou waiting outside, but he appears now at Kakashi’s side, silently handing him a scroll. He breaks the seal and scans the message: he’s being summoned to a council meeting.

He leaves without a word.

 

Sakura doesn’t come home from the hospital for days. When she isn’t catching minutes of fitful sleep, she’s in the lab, working on an antidote.

As Sasuke hasn’t regained consciousness, no one knows what happened to him. Only that Naruto found him collapsed outside the village gates, clearly having struggled to reach Konoha after being run through with a sword.

The poison his assailant coated the blade with is not one Sakura has seen before. It’s similar enough to one — a rare hemotoxin out of Amegakure — that its antidote has kept him alive, but just barely. His wounds won’t seem to close all the way no matter what she does. His heart has come dangerously close to stopping a dozen times by the third day, when Sakura finally makes a breakthrough.

This time, the staff grudgingly allows the extra presence. Both Kakashi and Naruto are in the room when Sakura steels herself with a deep breath and slowly injects him with the antidote. She gives it time to spread, gathering chakra in her palms to make another attempt at healing his internal injuries. To everyone else in the room, there is no way of knowing if it’s working. When several minutes pass with no change in his condition, even Sakura is starting to look panicked.

But finally, he stirs. Sighing their relief, she and Naruto rush to hug him. He seems to warm up after a few seconds, relaxing into their embrace if not returning it. Naruto pulls away first, furiously wiping away the tears now streaming down his face. Sakura lingers, and when she moves away from him it’s with a certain nervous apprehension. Sasuke is finally awake enough to take notice of how her body's changed.

He stares at her rounded belly for a very long moment before his eyes raise to meet hers. “Sakura...”

She drops her gaze, almost bashful. The tiny smile creeping onto her lips has something caustic rising in the back of Kakashi's throat. Sasuke doesn’t deserve a smile like that. He doesn’t deserve the right to pull her closer to him, tenderly touching her belly like she's still his. Like he’s done anything more than knock her up and abandon her. Like it hasn’t been left to Kakashi alone to watch over her for months.

He can’t watch this. He’s going to be sick.

 

Naruto comes by his office the next day to ask why he’d left so suddenly. His worry is touching, if misplaced. Kakashi uses the same excuse he’d been handed so conveniently that first night — that he’d been summoned. Important Hokage business. And if Naruto wonders why he hadn’t noticed this summons when it happened, he doesn’t ask. Maybe he’s used to missing things. To being out of the loop. It’s almost enough to make Kakashi pity him, but not enough to keep him from lying to his face.

It’s several more days before he sees Sakura.

When she finally comes to him, it isn’t with the rejection he’d half-expected. She still intends to leave Sasuke. She simply doesn’t have the heart to break up with him while he’s still in the hospital.

Inconveniently, Sasuke is in the hospital for a while. Kakashi tries to stay away from her with moderate success. On the rare night they do spend together, it proves impossible to relax. They keep expecting him to walk in.

Their luck had to run out eventually.

There’s a knock on the door. They don’t even know for sure that it’s him, but it fills the room with dread anyway. Their only saving grace is that the caller isn’t interrupting anything, but the two of them _are_  wearing very little. Sakura rushes to get dressed and answer the door, giving Kakashi a look as she slips out of the bedroom that tells him to stay quiet.

Still half-naked, he leans his back against the bedroom door, ensuring Sasuke couldn’t open it if he tried. Keeping absolutely still, he listens.

Sakura starts with kindness, as usual. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

Sasuke doesn’t even bother with the pretense of it. “Do you mind explaining to me why I just came home to an empty house?”

Sakura sounds a little abashed. “I only took my things.”

Sasuke’s voice is even and quiet, but he’s angrier than he’s letting on, and it sharpens the edge of every syllable. “ _Why_  did you move out? Why did I have to ask Naruto where to even find you?”

Kakashi closes his eyes and prays that whatever gods might exist give her strength.

“I think we should get a divorce.”

It’s quiet for so long that even Kakashi starts to get nervous.

“Is there someone else?”

“No," Sakura lies swiftly. Kakashi tries to ignore the pang he feels at this.

“Then why?”

She seems to struggle with how to answer this. She lets out a laugh before she does, humorless and exasperated. “You really have to ask?”

The only answer she gets is a deafening silence.

“I’m... not happy. You’re never home. And when you are, you never give me the kind of attention I need. I’m supposed to be your wife, but you’re so cold...”

Something tightens in Kakashi’s chest at the hurt in her voice. The question she asks after another loaded pause is so quiet it’s a wonder Kakashi can hear it at all.

“Do you even love me?”

To his credit, Sasuke doesn’t lie. He doesn’t say anything at all.

“Yeah. I thought so.”

Kakashi’s eyes close again, and he rubs them wearily. He doesn’t have to see her face to know how wretched she looks, and he hopes Sasuke feels every bit as terrible as she does for putting her through this. He wishes the boy would just leave and let Sakura forget him once and for all, but he seems to be hesitating.

“We’re.... You're having my child...”

The laugh she lets out is one of the most bitter Kakashi has ever heard from Sakura. He must be rubbing off on her. “Yeah. Guess we can’t take that back, can we?”

Sasuke doesn’t give her a response, but he’s clearly expecting more of one from her.

“Don’t worry,” she reassures him in a flat voice. “Even if there’s nothing between us, you’re still their father.”

Only after he hears her lock the deadbolt behind him does Kakashi finally let go of the tension keeping him stiff against the door. He sighs it out of him and makes his way to the bed, not sure how he’s supposed to be feeling. There’s an unmistakable air of awkwardness between them when Sakura re-enters the bedroom.

“I’m sorry.”

Kakashi smothers his surprise at that, keeping his voice light. “What for?”

Sakura shoots him a guilty look. “I wanted to say _yes_. But it was hard enough telling him that much without having to tell him I’ve already found someone else.”

“It’s all right.” He holds out his arms, and Sakura climbs onto the bed and into his embrace.

“Just tell me it’ll be okay.”

Kakashi isn’t sure it will be, but he can’t bring himself to do anything but comply.

“It’ll be okay,” he echoes, and kisses the top of her head. “You’ll see.”

 

And for a while, it is. Sasuke doesn’t bother her again, which is fortunate, as Kakashi has taken to spending nearly all his downtime at her apartment instead of his own. He’s been given free reign of the Hokage’s quarters, and the Hatake compound is still his alone, but he’s never made use of the former and he hasn’t wanted to set foot in the latter for going on thirty years.

The tiny apartment he’s called home since his recruit into ANBU feels entirely too empty in comparison. Lately, he hasn’t been inclined to do much more than drop by every couple days to water his plant and make sure nobody’s tried to break in and steal anything. He knows he’s treading on thin ice — it would only take the wrong person seeing him leave her apartment at the wrong time for their carefully spun deception to collapse.

This isn’t enough to stop him.

Sakura should be due any day now. It’s been almost a month since they slept together. At the first indication that she was in any discomfort he’d decided his libido could take a backseat. It’s led to an interesting realization. For a while he may have been able to convince himself that’s all it was between them — satisfying a need they’d both neglected for too long. It’s almost laughable to him now that he could have believed that at all.

So it terrifies him. It doesn’t make him any less in love with her.

 

And when the time inevitably comes, and Kakashi finds himself rushing Sakura to the hospital in the dead of night, he still hasn’t told her. He stays by her side, letting her crush his hand and doing everything in his power to reassure her, and he hopes that she knows anyway.

 

She names her Sarada. It’s her one last kindness to Sasuke. Choosing a name he’d suggested, back in the tragically short honeymoon period following their wedding.

When she is three weeks old and Sasuke still hasn’t come to see her, Sakura officially files for divorce.

 

This is the part she’s dreading, Kakashi knows. She’s taken care of everything — drawn up a standard agreement with her lawyer, knowing she shouldn’t expect him to work with her on this. She can expect him to sign a few places, maybe, but nothing more.

And only if he feels like it.

Knowing how unpredictable he can be, Kakashi offers to come along. Sakura accepts, visibly relieved. They both agree it’s better if he stays out of sight.

The problem is, he’s nowhere to be found. Sakura gets tired of knocking and lets herself in, only to find he isn’t in their quarters at the compound, or in any of its other buildings. She’s growing more worried the longer they search, because if he’s taken off again there’s no telling when they’ll finally get this over with.

Her worrying turns out to be for nothing. She’d planned to ask Naruto if he knew where Sasuke had gone, but it’s Sasuke who answers Naruto's door. He’s wearing a black silk robe and nothing else, apart from a look of vaguely smug defiance.

Naruto’s apartment is too small to hide anything. She can see straight into his bedroom, where he’s red-faced and (presumably) naked under the sheets bunched around his waist.

“Nice,” Sakura says dryly. “Would you sign these?”

Sasuke glares at her for a long moment before taking the papers and leafing through them to find the lines marked for his signature. He uses the wall right next to the door to write on, giving Sakura an unobscured view of Naruto slowly dying of embarrassment.

“Hey, Naruto,” she calls to him.

“Hey, Sakura-chan,” he answers weakly, sounding equally confused and relieved that she isn't chewing him out for this.

Somehow, it doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

Kakashi wonders if this is some petty attempt at revenge or if this is Sasuke finally being honest about what he wants. He hopes it’s more of the latter than the former, because Naruto doesn’t deserve to be used like that. As a way to hurt someone. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t put it past Sasuke.

Sakura’s laughing, shaking her head. “I don't know why I didn’t just tell you.”

Sasuke looks at her, annoyed. “Tell me what?”

“There is someone else.”

He stares at her a minute longer before turning his scowl back to the paperwork. Kakashi is sure he’s sliced through the paper once or twice with those harsh pen-strokes. “Who?”

On the rooftop across the street, hidden in shadow, Kakashi has stopped breathing.

Sakura considers him, arms crossed. “And you care... why?”

With a disaffected stare and one last signature, Sasuke severs the only tie left between them. “I don’t.”

He slams the door in her face and Kakashi can finally relax.

 

It’s strange how quickly they’ve started to feel like a little family. Sakura had been scared that motherhood would be too much for her but she’s handling it admirably so far. It’s exhausting, but she’d known it would be. Kakashi makes sure to tell her often how well she is doing, so she isn’t too hard on herself when she inevitably needs a break.

Kakashi doesn’t mind. Tiny children are about as demanding as older ones, and infinitely easier to entertain. Apart from the one time she’d scolded him for letting Sarada chew on the handle of a kunai, Sakura doesn’t seem to have any major complaints about his childrearing. Which is a relief, since he has about as much experience in this as she does, which is to say none at all.

They’re figuring it out together. And for a while, things are almost peaceful.

Sakura has been expecting a package in the mail from her mother, so when the knock comes, she opens the door without a moment's hesitation.

Kakashi is in the kitchen keeping an eye on the stove when her voice reaches him, deliberately louder than necessary. “Sasuke!”

He freezes. There is nowhere to go. It’s too late to hide now without being seen. He can only shift away from the center of the room, slowly and silently as he can, stopping with his back pressed into the wall separating the kitchen from the living room.

Sakura shuts the door and he hears footsteps, willing them to stop before they’ve gone too far. Sarada babbles something and he can hear the smile in Sakura’s voice. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

There’s only the sound of Sasuke pacing some more and a humorless laugh.

“Are you drunk?”

“Who is it?”

Sakura hesitates, clearly thrown by the directness of the question. “Does it matter? You don’t love me. You never did. You got what you wanted from me, so why do you care?”

“Is she even mine?”

“You cannot be fucking serious right now,” Sakura mutters, almost to herself. “Yes, you idiot, she’s yours. Isn’t it obvious? She looks exactly like you!”

“Yeah, she looks like an Uchiha,” he allows, but he doesn't sound convinced. “Or a Nara.”

Sakura laughs, short and incredulous. “You think I’m fucking Shikamaru?”

“I don’t know. Are you?”

He can hear Sakura losing patience, breathing hard to calm herself. “You’re a real asshole, you know that?”

“You still didn’t answer me.”

The baby starts to fuss, as if she can feel the rising hostility between the two of them. Kakashi doesn’t even think about it. His body starts to move of its own volition, so used to checking on her so Sakura can enjoy what little rest she can that it’s automatic by now. He catches himself before he's taken a second step.

It only takes the first and the _creak_ of the linoleum floor.

It grows very quiet in the living room. Kakashi slumps back against the wall and hangs his head, cursing himself, cursing everything, wishing he were anywhere but here.

Sasuke takes his time coming around the corner. Kakashi raises his head to meet the icy stare leveled at him from disturbingly close quarters.

“Kakashi.”

Kakashi greets him with a nod, ignoring the rudeness inherent in the dropped honorific and the galling fact that Sasuke now stands just a shade taller than him. He holds his gaze unflinchingly — black eyes boring into Sasuke's mismatched pair. In the depths of the one that looks so much like his own, he sees something dark stirring as Sasuke tilts his head. “...No.”

The only response Kakashi gives is the slightest quirk of an eyebrow.

The sound that escapes Sasuke is inhuman, and so is the speed at which he readies the Chidori.

But before he can strike, he’s wrenched away from Kakashi and slammed face-first into the wall. He tries to twist out of Sakura’s grasp but she doubles down, yanking that arm further behind his back and using her body weight to pin him in place. The lightning energy still crackles dangerously around his hand, and Kakashi is sure she can feel it singeing her bare skin, but she doesn’t so much as flinch.

“I’d think twice before threatening the Hokage, if I were you,” she murmurs into his ear. "With your history, I’m sure the council would take it _very_ seriously.”

Kakashi has never loved her more than in this moment.

 

It’s only after Sasuke’s swept out of the apartment in a cold rage that her bravado starts to falter.

“Well. We’re fucked.”

It wouldn’t do any good to show he’s as worried as she is. “There’s a chance he’ll keep quiet,” he points out.

“He was about to kill you just now.”

“He was about to try.”

Sakura lets out a terse laugh. “Don’t get cocky. Though I’m a little more worried about what he plans on doing with this information than I am about you getting your heart ripped out.”

Neither prospect is very appealing to contemplate.

“We’ll manage.”

“Will we? The disgraced Hokage and his little whore?”

It hurts to hear her this cynical. “Sakura...”

“You know exactly what they’ll say. Everyone will decide that either you’re a lecherous old man or I’m a ladder-climbing bitch who doesn’t care if I ruin you in the process.”

He sighs, beginning to feel very weary. “It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. Not when we know the truth.”

But long into the night, Kakashi can’t sleep. He keeps thinking about his father. How it must have felt being scorned by everyone who, until that last mission, only ever had the utmost admiration for him. Knowing the truth did nothing to keep the shame and isolation from eating him alive.

 

Insomnia and Kakashi are so well-acquainted it is almost like an old friend. If sleep is a lost cause, he finds it best to do something productive with all that time. For example: right now, if nothing else, he can ensure Sakura sleeps through the night. He’s fed and changed one very cranky baby and finally gotten her to drift off, too, when a knock — no, a _bang_  — shatters the silence and everything he’s worked so hard for.

Sarada starts wailing and Kakashi closes his eyes, cursing silently. Three guesses who that is, he thinks.

“Go away,” he tells the door. It’s silent for the space of a few seconds. Then the person starts to pound on it and doesn’t stop.

It’s at this point that Sakura emerges from the bedroom, fatigue and annoyance turning her face into a scowl. She crosses right to the door and wrenches it open, looking ready to tear Sasuke a new one.

It isn’t Sasuke.

“Oh,” she says softly, and pulls Naruto into a hug.

He looks wretched. He pushes back from her almost immediately, blue eyes full of worry.

“He tried to leave. He said he was leaving Konoha. When I asked for how long, he said for good. I didn’t know what to do...”

“Naruto...” Sakura looks at a loss for what to say. “Where is he now?”

Naruto blinks. After a moment, he starts to look sheepish. “Well, he’s— I mean, I had to knock him out, right? He was gonna leave otherwise.”

A stunned pause, and Sakura laughs, fondly exasperated. “Of course you did.”

Naruto finally notices Kakashi.

There’s a fleeting moment of surprise, but he rebounds immediately. “Hey, Kakashi-sensei! Sakura-chan... if you needed help babysitting you could have asked me, y’know?”

Sakura’s smile freezes on her face. “Yeah, I mean... if you’re up for it. I’ll definitely call you next time.”

“A’right, good! But, seriously...” He leans in, going for conspiratorial but not lowering his voice quite enough. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d seen him without the mask? Gotta admit, I’m kinda let down... He looks so  _normal_.”

“I know, right?” The smile she’s wearing now is genuine, but short-lived. “So did... did Sasuke say anything? About why he wanted to leave?”

“Nah.” Naruto sighs. “He’s not really the talk-about-his-feelings type. I just figured it had something to do with... y’know.” He looks uncomfortable, wary of saying anything that could hurt her. “I know you guys have been fighting a lot.”

“He really didn’t tell you anything?” she asks quietly.

Naruto shakes his head. He might not be able to hear the relief in Sakura’s sigh, but Kakashi surely does.

She tries to look appropriately mournful as she weighs her words. “Maybe we should just... let him leave?”

Naruto looks so miserable at that, even Kakashi wonders if they could do that to him.

“I dunno. I didn’t even want him to go on another mission anytime soon after the last one. But this? Leaving for good?” Kakashi can see that the mere idea of it pains him. “He says it’s what he wants, but what about you? What about Sarada-chan?” He looks over to where she’s settled into a fitful sleep on Kakashi’s shoulder. “She _has_ a dad. But she still might grow up without ever knowing him. Just seems wrong, y’know?”

Sakura doesn't have a response to that.

 

It’s only possible because of Naruto.

Kakashi really shouldn’t be surprised. The boy _has_  shown he can move mountains and work miracles when it’s for the sake of his loved ones.

The chill in the air that lasts the entirety of the first visit cannot be helped. Naruto certainly feels it, even if he doesn’t fully comprehend the reason for it. He tries his best to compensate, starting conversations with every one of them to fill the tense silence.

Sasuke and Kakashi don't say a word to each other. That little fact seems lost on Naruto, whose looks of concern keep shifting between the recently-divorced couple.

Bless his heart.

And though Sasuke looks anything but comfortable, it’s also clear that he doesn't completely regret letting Naruto drag him here. He finally gets to hold his daughter. And when Sarada pats his face with her chubby little hand, he even smiles.

If anyone notices the ANBU watching them all from the next room, they at least have the manners not to mention it.

 

 

 

 


End file.
